from passing. Naturally this was the third barrier to his entry into the castle.
Dor jumped out of the way and slid down to the brink again, disgruntled.
The Hoofer thundered by, disappearing around the curve.
Dor wiped another dribble of slime off his nose. He wasn’t making much progress! This was annoying, because he had passed his first challenge without difficulty and faced only two comparatively simple and harmless ones-to avoid the Hoofer and scale the slippery slope.
Either alone was feasible; together they baffled him. Now he had perhaps ten minutes to accomplish both before the ornery raincloud wiped him out. Already the forward edge of the cloud had cut off the sunbeam.
Dor didn’t like leaning on his magic talent too much, but decided that pride was a foolish baggage at this point. He had to get inside the castle any way he could and get Good Magician Humfrey’s advice-for the good of Xanth.
“Glass, since you’re so bright-tell me how I can get past the Hoofer and up your slope before the cloud strikes.”
“Don’t tell him!” the cloud thundered.
“Well, I’m not so bright any more, now that I’m in your shadow,” the glass demurred. This was true; the sparkle was gone, and the mountain was a somber dark mass, like the quiet depths of an ocean.
“But you remember the answer,” Dor said. “Give.”
“Take!” the storm blew.
“I’ve got to tell him,” the glass said dolefully. “Though I’d much rather watch him fall on his as-“
“Watch your language!” Dor snapped.
“-sinine posterior again and dip his nose in the gunk. But he’s a Magician and I’m only silicon.” The glass sighed. “Very well. Cogitate and masticate on-“
“What?”
“Give me strength to survive the monumental idiocy of the animate,” the glass prayed obnoxiously. The cloud had let a gleam of sunlight through, making it bright again. “Think and chew on this: who can most readily mount the slope?”
“The Sidehill Hoofer,” Dor said. “But that’s no help. I’m the one who-“
“Think and chew,” the glass repeated with emphasis.
That reminded Dor of the way King Trent had stressed the importance of honesty, and that annoyed Dor. This mountain was no King! What business did it have making oblique allusions, as if Dor were a dunce who needed special handling? “Look, glass-I asked you a direct question-“
“An indirect question, technically. My response reflects your approach. But surely you realize that I am under interdiction by another Magician.”
Dor didn’t know what “interdiction” meant, but could guess.
Humfrey had told the mountain not to blab the secret. But the cloud was looming close and large and dense with water, and he was impatient.
“Hey, I insist that you tell me.”
“’That is of course the answer.”
Dor paused. This too-bright object was making a fool of him. He reviewed his words. Hey, I insist that you tell me-how was that the answer? Yet it seemed it was.
“You’ll never get it,” the glass said disparagingly.
“Hey, now-“ Dor started angrily.
“There you go again.”
Hey, now?
Suddenly Dor got it. Hey-spelled H A Y. “Hay-now!” he cried.
It was a homonym.
The zombie sea serpent, taking that for an order, swam across the moat and reached out to take a clumsy bite of dry grass from the outer bank. It brought this back to Dor.
“Thank you, serpent,” Dor said, accepting the armful. He shook out the residual slime and dottle, and several more of the monster’s teeth bounced on the glass. Zombies had an inexhaustible supply of fragments of themselves to drop; it was part of their nature.
He started up the slope yet again, but this time he wanted to meet the Hoofer. He stood there with his hay, facing her.
The creature came ’round the mountain-and paused as she sighted him. Her ears perked forward and her tongue ran over her lips.
“That’s right, you beautiful bovine,” Dor said. “This hay is for you. Think and chew-to chew on while you think. I noticed that there isn’t much forage along your beat. You must use a lot of energy, pounding around, and work up quite an appetite. Surely you could use a lunch break before the rain spoils everything.”
The Hoofer’s eyes became larger. They were beautiful and soulful.
Her square nose quivered as she sniffed in the odor of the fresh hay.
Her pink tongue ran around her muzzle again. She was certainly hungry.
“Of course, if I set it down, it’ll just slide down the slope and into the moat,” Dor said reasonably. “I guess you could fish it out, but slime-coated hay doesn’t taste very good, does it?” As he spoke, a stronger gust of wind from the eager storm swirled through, tugging at the hay and waiting a few strands down to the goo of the moat.
The Hoofer fidgeted with alarm.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” Dor said. “I’ll just get on your back and carry the hay, and feed it to you while you walk. That way you’ll be able to eat it all, without losing a wisp, and no one can accuse you of being derelict in your duty. You’ll be covering your beat all the time.”
“Mmmooo,” the Hoofer agreed, salivating. She might not be bright, but she knew a good deal when she smelled it.
Dor approached, gave her a good mouthful of hay, then scrambled onto her back from the uphill side. Is left foot dragged, while his right foot dangled well above the surface of the glass, but he was sitting level. He leaned forward and extended his left hand to present another morsel of hay.
The Hoofer took it and chewed blissfully, walking forward. When she finished masticating that-Dor realized he had learned a new word, though he would never be able to spell it-he gave her more, again left-handedly. She had to turn her head left to take it, and her travel veered slightly that way, uphill.
They continued in this manner for a full circuit of the mountain.
Sure enough, they were higher on the slope than they had been. His constant presentation of hay on the upward side caused the Hoofer to spiral upward. That was where he wanted to go.
The storm was almost upon them. It had not been fooled! Dor leaned forward, squeezing with his knees, and the Hoofer unconsciously speeded up. The second circuit of the mountain was much faster, because of the accelerated pace and the narrower diameter at this elevation, and the third was faster yet. But Dor’s luck, already overextended, was running out. His supply of hay, he saw, would not last until the top-and the rain would catch them anyway.
He made a bold try to turn liabilities into assets. “I’m running out of hay-and the storm is coming,” he told the Hoofer. “You’d better set me down before it gets slippery; no sense having my weight burden you.”
She hesitated, thinking this through. Dor helped the process.
“Anywhere will do. You don’t have to take me all the way to the base of the mountain. Maybe there at the top, where I’ll be out of your way; it’s certainly closer.”
That made good cow-sense to her. She trotted in a rapidly tightening spiral to the pinnacle, unbothered by the nearly vertical slope, where Dor stepped off. “Thanks, Hoofer,” he said. “You do have pretty eyes.” His experience with Irene had impressed upon him the advantage of complimenting females; they all were vain about their appearance.
Pleased, the Hoofer began spiraling down. At that point, the storm struck. The cloud crashed into the pinnacle; the cloud substance tore asunder and water sluiced out of the rent. Rain pelted down, covering the glass surface instantly to something like slick ice. Wind buffeted him, whistling past the needle-pointed apex of the mountain that had wounded the cloud, making dire screams.
Dor’s feet slipped out, and he had to fling his arms around the narrow spire to keep from sliding rapidly down.
